Hero–Type by Barry Lyga Page B

radio and all over the Web. Flip should be giddy when I see him at school, but he's depressed. Fam holds his hand and pets it like that'll soothe him.
    "No one gets it," he complains. "They're talking about vandalism and theft, but no one gets it."
    "Sorry. But you know what I noticed?"
    He goes on, ignoring me. "I mean, there's no bridge! Right? A support with nothing on it. Empty, pointless support."
    "No one even noticed that their ribbons were missing until they saw the bridge or heard about it," I tell him. "They don't even
see
the damn things anymore."
    He's totally
oblivious
to me. "No one gets it. Not a one! It's a brilliant commentary on—"
    I give up trying to get through to him. "Flip, if you have to explain a joke, it's not funny."
    "No, the audience is just too stupid. Cut it out." He jerks his hand away from Fam. "Subtlety is lost on these morons."
    I get away from him as quickly as I can. I need to be in homeroom.
     
    In homeroom, I bide my time, waiting until everyone is in the room and just getting settled. I still have a minute or two before the bell and then a minute or two after that before the TV comes on and the announcer of the day leads us in the Pledge.
    I get up and walk to the front of the class and say, "Excuse me! Could I have everyone's attention?"
    Mrs. Sawyer looks like I just kicked her in the gut. Everyone stops what they're doing and gives me the same look you'd give a guy who not only just farted in church but also stood up to announce it loud and clear.
    God, I hope I can pull this off.
    "Before the announcements come on and the Pledge, I wanted to say something." I'm expecting a chorus of boos (or at least for Mrs. Sawyer to tell me to shut up), but I guess I've shocked everyone into paralysis.
    I clear my throat and start to talk and I'm halfway through my speech before I realize I don't even need to look at my notes—I just
know
this stuff.
    "I know this all started with some ribbons on my car... or, hell, off my car. But yesterday I realized that there's something that came before the ribbons, for all of us. And we don't even think about it. Just like the ribbons.
    "You know, every morning in school, ever since we were all little kids in kindergarten, we come in and we say the Pledge. And I guess that's fine, but you know, I got to thinking: What
is
the Pledge? What does it mean? Why do we say it? No one has ever told us that. They just tell us to say it and we do. And
if
we're supposed to be pledging allegiance, shouldn't we think about what that means? For most of us, the Pledge has always just been there. But do we ever really—"
    "We're supposed to say it," John Riordon calls out from his seat in back. "You don't just sit there and do nothing. You say the Pledge." There's an agreeable undercurrent.
    "OK, that's fine. But why?"
    "Because you do," John says, again to murmured agreement. He's not just a football stud. He's also in a bunch of the college prep classes. So people are taking him seriously. More seriously than the guy who takes the easy classes and pulls straight Cs. (That would be me.)
    "It's how you show you love your country," he goes on.
"If you
do." He looks like he's about to get out of his chair and rearrange my face, but I keep going.
    "So George Washington and Abe Lincoln didn't love this country?"
    I get the moment of surprised silence I was hoping for. John grits his teeth and gets up.
    "Sit down, John!" Mrs. Sawyer says. "You, too, Kevin."
    "The Pledge didn't even exist until 1892," I go on. "The guy who wrote it was a
socialist."
    Some blank stares. Riordon starts walking down the aisle to me.
    "Socialists are supposed to be, like, the bad guys," I say, speeding up. "He only wrote the thing because there was this big world's fair in Chicago and he thought it would be cool to have kids all across the country say something nice. I mean, that's it. Really. That's the only reason it exists.
    "Anyway, it wasn't the same Pledge as the one we say now. So how did